Symphonies
by Brown Eyes Parker
Summary: Connecting one-shots about Kate & Daniel and their journey from the brink of madness to finding each other. Rated T.
1. When She Went Away, When She Came Back

**Story 1 – When She Went Away, When She Came Back**

**A Daniel and Kate Story**

**By Brown Eyes Parker**

**Author's Note: **

**I'm back with a new batch of connecting one-shots, I kind of discarded last year's story "Dark Line" after listening to the playlist for it and coming up totally uninspired. I decided to start from scratch, with new songs and new ideas. These will be based on instrumental songs from soundtracks and a couple of other places. I'm warning you in advance, that this story came to me in between waking and sleeping and my knowledge of mental illnesses and rehab centers/institutes are limited. Forgive my inconsistencies. The title and idea for this story was inspired by When She Went Away and When She Came Back by Max Richter (from Sarah's Key).**

**Rated: T**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**.**

Kate was gone.

Daniel couldn't tell at first, but his world had started to spin out of control. Without her to draw him out of his mind, he got deeply entrenched in it. He stopped working for the FBI, stopped going into the office, eventually Natalie stopped visiting him. Nobody in real life could reach him even though they tried. He started hearing her voice all of the time, wherever he went. No matter what he did, he couldn't escape it. All the other people who came in and out of his life to visit disappeared and she was the only person he saw.

Daniel was a mess, his life was in shambles. One day, he forgot where he was . Forgot his name and what he was supposed to do with his life and everything in between. Then one day with the help of some powerful drugs, it all came crashing back and invaded the corners of his mind again, reminding him of everything he was trying to forget.

Kate was gone. The person he had been seeing on a daily basis was just a figment of his imagination.

The doctors came to talk to him every day, tried to get him to open up and tell him what was wrong with him. They tried to get him into group therapy and to take medicine, but he hid the pills in his cheek and chucked them when the nurse wasn't looking. He made impudent remarks about the other patients; trying everything he could to get them to alienate him. When they did, he spent most of his days in his room and most of his nights playing the piano in the activity room.

_Don't you want to get better, Dr. Pierce? _The beautiful black nurse would ask him every single morning as she led him back to his room after another sleepless night of pounding the piano keys, while Kate would watch him silently from her seat beside him.

He shook his head; he didn't want to get better. Not if it meant that he wouldn't get to see Kate every single day for the rest of his life. But he didn't ever tell the beautiful black nurse this because he knew that she wouldn't understand if he did.

Sometimes Daniel would have visitors during visiting hours. Max, Paul, a handful of his students would stop by to see him. They would all talk to him, try to draw him out of himself, but he didn't care if they were there or not. They all had the same problem, none of them were Kate.

Eventually everybody except for Max stopped coming to see him. And even then his young aid stopped trying to have conversations with him; instead he would spend their hour together reading to him. At the end of every visit, he would pat him on the shoulder and tell him that he really wanted him to get better but he had decided he was going to stop trying to force him to do it.

And time went on; Daniel still refused to get better. He refused the help of his doctors and nurses and his fellow patients. They never stopped trying, never letting him go. He spent every single day trapped behind for grey walls with other crazies and fruit loops as his only real life companions. They had lots to say to them when he didn't have anything to say to them.

One day in early fall, the red-headed girl with freckles and a drug addiction asked him what the _real _Kate would think if she could see him now. He was struck by her insight but for the life of him, he couldn't formulate an answer even though he knew what the answer was.

She wouldn't like it. She had always fought hard to keep his demons at bay. Until she had fallen in love with her ex-husband again and left him all alone. He swallowed hard and looked at the red-headed girl, steeling himself against all the bad feelings that were crashing over him like waves at the beach.

For the first time in a long time, he finally said something.

"She stopped caring about me, why should I care what _she _thinks?"

He got up and walked away; found his way to the piano. He slammed on the keys and for the first time, he tried to escape the imagined her. She didn't disappear but he stopped talking to her.

Then one day in late November, he was sitting in his room looking outside at rain pounding against his window. He was thinking about the red-haired girl who had confronted him about Kate. She had been released right before Halloween, she had lost her battle with drugs the day after Thanksgiving. He hadn't even known her name. Everybody in the ward was devastated; it had been a terrible loss. She had seemed to be doing so well. . . but Daniel guessed that she had been good at hiding her demons.

There was a knock on the door and the beautiful black nurse stuck her head in his room. "There's somebody here to see you Dr. Pierce," she said.

"I'm not in the mood for visitors," Daniel answered.

"Oh but I think you'll want to see her," the nurse replied, smiling at him.

"_Her?"_ Daniel repeated, frowning slightly.

"Hello Daniel."

He stopped cold, he would have recognized that voice if they were in a room with a million people. It had been the voice that had haunted him for ages; it was the voice of the one woman that he thought he would never see again.

"Nurse. . . tell me if she's really here. Please tell me that I'm not just imagining this," Daniel whispered.

"I can see her plain as day," the nurse replied, her voice as smooth and comforting as honey. "Do you want me to leave you two alone to talk, sugar?"

"Please," Daniel said, finally bringing himself to look at her.

At Kate.

"Daniel. . ." Kate whispered her voice low and twanged with regret. "Oh Daniel, look at you. . . you're a mess."

"You're beautiful," Daniel told her, rising to his feet and walking towards her. He reached out and touched her face, her hair, and her shoulders. Finally his hands slid down to her hands and he grasped them like he was clutching a lifeline. "You're really here. You left me."

Kate's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you back?"

"Donnie," she answered.

"Oh. . ."

"He's not a part of my life anymore. He's not going to be part of my life ever again," Kate said. She shook her head. "Oh Daniel. . . look at you. . . this is all of my fault."

"I'm okay," he lied.

"I should have come sooner," Kate said. "I've been back for a while now; I just didn't want you to get worse. I was afraid that you would think I was using you. . . . I should have come sooner. I'm sorry that I didn't."

Daniel shook his head. "Don't. . ."

Kate sniffed. "You're going to get better right? You'll start participating in group therapy and talking to the doctors? And you'll take all your medicines?"

"I guess," Daniel said.

"None of that Daniel! I need you to promise me that you're going to make an effort to get better!"

"I'll make an effort to get better," he finally answered. "You're not going to leave me again, are you?"

"Well, after visiting hours, I'm going to have to leave you. But I'll be back tomorrow," Kate said. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Kate let go of his hands and hugged him. "Oh Daniel. . ." she whispered again.

"Kate," he whispered back, making fists in her jacket and not intending to let her go until he had to.

**_The End_**

**.**

**Author's Note II:**

**Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. I am looking forward to hearing them. If you have anything to say then please click on the box below and do so. Just don't tell me Kate was OOC, she probably was. But then I never thought that the Kate on the show would go back with **_**Donnie**_** and I was wrong. So. . . time will tell. **

**Until Next Time!**

**Love,**

**Holly, 6/24/2014_**


	2. Goodbye

**Story 2 – Goodbye**

**A Daniel and Kate Story**

**By Brown Eyes Parker**

**Shout-outs: pipanpink**

**Author's Note: I wasn't going to continue this story but thanks to the one review I got on story one, I decided to give it another try. This one is based on "Goodbye" from Hachi: A Dog's Tale. **

**Rated: T**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**.**

"You don't have to go you know. Not right away anyways," Daniel told her.

"I know," Kate answered. "But I sort of want to, I want to get used to a new place before I get married. It'll be easier to get adjusted to a new culture while I don't have to adjust to married life all over again. Don't get me wrong Daniel; I am going to miss it here. I'm going to miss the work and my father. And you but I need to do this. I'll make sure you still have a way to work with the FBI even though I won't be here."

Daniel sighed. "It won't be the same though. You're the only person who can really stand working with me. Nobody else gets me the way you do, nobody except for Max."

Kate smiled. "Well, it's a good thing you still have Max then."

"Good thing," Daniel muttered, sighing slightly as he forced himself to smile at her. "I just want you to be happy and if this makes you happy, then go and do it. Don't worry about me."

"I'm always going to worry about you," she said.

"I wish that you wouldn't," he replied.

"Well that's impossible. Listen, I have to go now. My plane leaves in two hours," Kate told him as she got to her feet. She touched him on the shoulder, knowing a hug was out of the question. "Take care of yourself, okay? Please take care of yourself."

"I will," Daniel promised.

But as Kate walked away from him, she couldn't help thinking that he had made the promise under false pretenses. She couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't going to be okay or take care of himself. It made her want to stay and make sure he was going to keep his promises, but she knew if she stayed then she was never going to leave and she _had _to go.

So, she got on the plane and tried not to look back but it was impossible not to do it a little bit. She knew Daniel was in good hands and that even if the worst possible thing happened to him; he would be well taken care of.

But still, she worried about him, she couldn't help it. Worrying about him had become such a huge part of her life; she thought that maybe she was going to worry about him for the rest of their natural lives.

**.**

"You're far away tonight," Donnie commented a few months later. He put their Chinese takeout on the table and went over to her. "Is everything okay Kate?"

"Everything's fine!" Kate assured him, standing up and looking over his shoulder. "You brought dinner! I hope you remembered to get the teriyaki chicken. . ."

"Of course I did," Donnie answered. "Kate, are you sure everything's okay? Is it your father? How's Daniel."

"My father's fine Donnie and as for Daniel, I'm assuming that he's okay. I haven't heard from him since I called to tell him that I had gotten here safely. But I'm sure Max would have called me if anything was wrong."

"Not if Daniel doesn't want him to," Donnie said, taking cartons out of a box and arranging their meals on a plate. "But I'm sure you're right, I'm sure everything's fine over there. Now come on and eat before dinner gets cold."

Kate nodded and picked up a fork, she ate but didn't really taste the food. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something terribly wrong with her friend back in Chicago.

When she called to check in on him the next day, nobody answered the phone. She hung up feeling even worse than she had before and wanting to jump on a plane to go to see him right away. But the fear of having her suspicions confirmed kept her from checking flights, so she went to church instead and lit a candle, praying over and over again that he was all right.

And then, a month later, she had a major bombshell dropped on her. Donnie had cheated again, at first she didn't believe it. . . she couldn't believe it. But the evidence that he _had_ was overwhelming. There were texts and pictures, this time it was much more than a quick romp with her best friend. Kate felt physically ill and she wondered how she hadn't seen it.

When she confronted him about it, he told her it was because she just hadn't seemed into building a life together again. Kate knew it was true but she also knew that it wasn't a good excuse for cheating. Suddenly she realized that it would probably always be that way, every time she got distracted he would run and find somebody who would pay attention to him. She realized it wasn't the kind of life she wanted.

So, she bid him goodbye and packed up her things to go back to Chicago. She spent a few days apartment hunting and getting her life back in order, in between that, she called Daniel to tell him that she was back in town. Still, there wasn't any answer.

Finally, she went to his house to pay him a visit, hoping if everything was okay then he would be forced to talk to her by her presence. But nobody answered the door, so she went to the university where he taught.

It was like Paul Haley had been waiting for her. He pulled her aside and told her everything that had happened while she had been away. She listened, barely registering what he was telling her, the only words she could really understand were _breakdown_, _hospital_, and _hallucinations. _

"What was he hallucinating?" Kate finally asked.

"You," Dean Haley answered.

**.**

A few weeks later, she sat in front of the hospital, watching the rain beat down on the windshield and windshield wipers swish back and forth. She was gathering up her courage, she didn't know how to face him but she knew she couldn't avoid him forever. After waiting a few more seconds, she unbuckled and grabbed the black umbrella on the passenger seat; she opened it and made a run for the hospital entrance.

There was a pretty black nurse at the front desk reading a Nicholas Sparks novel and eating red _Mike & Ikes_, her name tag said she was named Honey. Kate cleared her throat and rested her hands on the counter.

"I'm here to see Doctor Daniel Pierce," she said.

Honey looked up and smiled. "Of course, you must be Kate. If you'd just sign in sugar, I'll take you to see him right away."

Kate's hands were slightly shaking as she signed the register.

"It'll be okay," Honey told her as she dropped the black Bic pen. "I think he'll be happy to see you."

"I hope you're right," Kate answered, following her down the hallway and to a room with a closed door.

Honey knocked on the door once and then stuck her head in the doorway. "There's somebody here to see you Dr. Pierce," she said.

"I'm not in the mood for visitors," came Daniel's muffled reply.

"Oh but I think you'll want to see her," Honey replied, smiling at him before taking Kate gently by the arm and bringing her into the room.

"_Her?"_ Daniel asked.

"Hello Daniel," Kate said her voice small and distant to her own ears.

"Nurse. . . tell me if she's really here. Please tell me that I'm not just imagining this," Daniel whispered.

"I can see her plain as day," Honey replied, her voice as smooth and comforting as her name. "Do you want me to leave the two of you alone to talk, sugar?"

"Please," Daniel answered, finally bringing himself to look at her.

"Daniel. . . oh Daniel. . . look at you, you're a mess!" Kate said as wave after wave of regret washed over her.

"You're beautiful," Daniel told her, rising to his feet and coming towards her. He touched her in the appropriate places before taking her hands in his and clinging to them like his life depended on it. "You're really here. You left me."

Tears pricked the corners of Kate's eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Why are you back?"

"Donnie."

"Oh. . ."

They exchanged more words, more lies, more apologies and more regrets. After it was over, she made him promise to take his medication and to participate in his therapy. He asked if she was going to leave again, she told him that she had to when visiting hours were over but she would be back the next day. He told her that he would like that, then she hugged him and he hugged her back, clutching her like he was never going to let her go.

Not until he had to anyways.

And she didn't mind in the least, because she didn't want to let him go either.

**_The End_**

**.**

**Author's Note II:**

**Anyways, there's the end of my second story. I hope you'll review but I'm not expecting anything. If you feel like telling me what you thought, then click on the box below and tell me there. **

**Until Next Time!**

**Holly, 7/7/2014_**


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